Seems like you’re conflating memory and past and have yet to define “real”. I believe the past is real. Our memories or documentation of the past may be biased by perspective or influenced by other things, but it does describe some-“thing”, imo.

It seems to me the question of “is the past real” is nonsensical.    Real compared to what?   The present?

There is no qualitative distinction between what we perceive as the present, and the past.    All that we perceive as the present are merely information about things which occurred in the past, whether that information is a memory creates some time ago and recalled now, sensation of touching a hot stove that took several tenths of seconds to reach our brain through the nerve endings and spinal cord and become register in our minds, news reports several hours out of date, history texts several centuries out of date, or a supernova whose light look a billion years to reach us only now.


All that is so called present is nothing more than arrival of information about the past.

I have my memories of things past and many photos to verify people, places, and things from the past...near and far.

Not really sure about the reason for questioning the existence of the past. Without events in the past there'd be no now and no future.

Today doesn't erase yesterday. It's not an Etch-A-Sketch world.

(October 15, 2022 at 6:28 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: I have my memories of things past and many photos to verify people, places, and things from the past...near and far.

Not really sure about the reason for questioning the existence of the past. Without events in the past there'd be no now and no future.

Today doesn't erase yesterday. It's not an Etch-A-Sketch world.

From a presentist perspective, your photos and memories are real because they exist in the present. But in many cases the objects in them are not present and therefore not real. The question is to what do those photos and memories actually refer since the referents no longer exist?

So yes, I say etch-a-sketch world is on the table. Unless you have a reason for dismissing it. The past is story constucted from real forms in the present.

(October 15, 2022 at 7:43 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(October 15, 2022 at 6:28 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: I have my memories of things past and many photos to verify people, places, and things from the past...near and far.

Not really sure about the reason for questioning the existence of the past.  Without events in the past there'd be no now and no future.

Today doesn't erase yesterday.  It's not an Etch-A-Sketch world.

From a presentist perspective, your photos and memories are real because they exist in the present. But in many cases the objects in them are not present and therefore not real. The question is to what do those photos and memories actually refer since the referents no longer exist?

How is what is perceived to exist in the present in principle more real than what provided indications of having existed in the past?

both are artifacts of perception, and both are based on information which has been held in abeyance while traveling to you and only arrived to stimulate the perception after a time delay.

(October 15, 2022 at 7:43 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(October 15, 2022 at 6:28 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: I have my memories of things past and many photos to verify people, places, and things from the past...near and far.

Not really sure about the reason for questioning the existence of the past.  Without events in the past there'd be no now and no future.

Today doesn't erase yesterday.  It's not an Etch-A-Sketch world.

From a presentist perspective, your photos and memories are real because they exist in the present. But in many cases the objects in them are not present and therefore not real. The question is to what do those photos and memories actually refer since the referents no longer exist?

So yes, I say etch-a-sketch world is on the table.  Unless you have a reason for dismissing it. The past is story constucted from real forms in the present.

I think your position is supported here by the fact that memory is often faulty. It's pretty well proven that what we recall has been edited and interpreted. The memory we have presently in our mind is more or less tenuously related to the event that originally prompted it.

Likewise souvenirs and artifacts. They obviously originated in the past, but their meaning and the associations they call to mind exist in the present. 

Maybe we should say we have every reason to believe that the past WAS real, when we were in the past, but it doesn't exist now. (Or rather, it doesn't exist FOR US now. If it's true that time is made in the mind, or that there is a God for whom all time exists simultaneously, then the past does exist still, but outside of our minds.)

(October 15, 2022 at 8:19 pm)Belacqua Wrote:

(October 15, 2022 at 7:43 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: From a presentist perspective, your photos and memories are real because they exist in the present. But in many cases the objects in them are not present and therefore not real. The question is to what do those photos and memories actually refer since the referents no longer exist?

So yes, I say etch-a-sketch world is on the table.  Unless you have a reason for dismissing it. The past is story constucted from real forms in the present.

I think your position is supported here by the fact that memory is often faulty. It's pretty well proven that what we recall has been edited and interpreted. The memory we have presently in our mind is more or less tenuously related to the event that originally prompted it.

Likewise souvenirs and artifacts. They obviously originated in the past, but their meaning and the associations they call to mind exist in the present. 

Maybe we should say we have every reason to believe that the past WAS real, when we were in the past, but it doesn't exist now. (Or rather, it doesn't exist FOR US now. If it's true that time is made in the mind, or that there is a God for whom all time exists simultaneously, then the past does exist still, but outside of our minds.)

Indeed, I am taking the temporary stance that the the past has the same ontological status as the future. That the future does not exist (yet) seems commonplace compared to the notion that the past does in some sense exist. Yet the future as what might be based on present reality seems no different from the past as what could have been based on what is presently available. So why do we think the past is real but the future is not?

(October 15, 2022 at 10:19 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(October 15, 2022 at 8:19 pm)Belacqua Wrote: I think your position is supported here by the fact that memory is often faulty. It's pretty well proven that what we recall has been edited and interpreted. The memory we have presently in our mind is more or less tenuously related to the event that originally prompted it.

Likewise souvenirs and artifacts. They obviously originated in the past, but their meaning and the associations they call to mind exist in the present. 

Maybe we should say we have every reason to believe that the past WAS real, when we were in the past, but it doesn't exist now. (Or rather, it doesn't exist FOR US now. If it's true that time is made in the mind, or that there is a God for whom all time exists simultaneously, then the past does exist still, but outside of our minds.)

Indeed, I am taking the temporary stance that the the past has the same ontological status as the future. That the future does not exist (yet) seems commonplace compared to the notion that the past does in some sense exist. Yet the future as what might be based on present reality seems no different from the past as what could have been based on what is presently available. So why do we think the past is real but the future is not?

I know there is a past.  There has to be as we didn't spontaneously appear at this moment.

The future isn't guaranteed but is probable.

So if a photo was real when we were present when it was taken; and the subject was real at the time, what are they now. The subject could be a deceased parent,etc. and no longer exist in the present, and I infer most take that as less real. The picture of the deceased in the present would be real in that it is an artifact and a representation. Something about this isn’t sitting right with me logically. I think at the moment in the past and the moment in the present both the picture and the subject are equally real.

(October 15, 2022 at 10:19 pm)Neo-Scholastic Wrote:

(October 15, 2022 at 8:19 pm)Belacqua Wrote: I think your position is supported here by the fact that memory is often faulty. It's pretty well proven that what we recall has been edited and interpreted. The memory we have presently in our mind is more or less tenuously related to the event that originally prompted it.

Likewise souvenirs and artifacts. They obviously originated in the past, but their meaning and the associations they call to mind exist in the present. 

Maybe we should say we have every reason to believe that the past WAS real, when we were in the past, but it doesn't exist now. (Or rather, it doesn't exist FOR US now. If it's true that time is made in the mind, or that there is a God for whom all time exists simultaneously, then the past does exist still, but outside of our minds.)

Indeed, I am taking the temporary stance that the the past has the same ontological status as the future. That the future does not exist (yet) seems commonplace compared to the notion that the past does in some sense exist. Yet the future as what might be based on present reality seems no different from the past as what could have been based on what is presently available. So why do we think the past is real but the future is not?

Sorry for the double post. I think because part of the definition of real has to include actualization. Things in the past did happen, and now is pure actualization, but the further away from now we look into the future the less it can be actualized.